To be a kid again

Times sure have changed since the old days when I jumped out of bed at 5 a.m., walked 10 miles to school in the dark in waist-high snow and stoked the school's coal furnace … blah, blah, blah.

It may not have been quite that tough back then, but there is absolutely no doubt times have changed for many kids in today's world - especially the privileged in ultra-wealthy families.

I remember my bedroom as a kid. I didn't grow up in wealth, so it didn't take much to please me. My bedroom was nothing special. A football in one corner, basketball in another. A few pictures on the wall of my sports heroes, guys like Al Kaline, Denny McLain, Mickey Lolich, Joe Schmidt, Bobby Layne.

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My grandkids, who don't exactly stoke the school furnace, have nice bedrooms, but the really upper echelon kids (financially speaking) knock the ball out of the park with their extravagant sleeping quarters.

In England, people go to incomprehensible extremes, such as the little miss who sleeps in a land of luxury to the fantasy tune of $63,260 (U.S.). It comes complete with a Cinderella coach bed ($23,155 - on sale), a themed walk-in wardrobe (which I assume would be a closet), dressing table, wall murals, hand-made bed spread with 22-karat gold sewn into the finest fabric money can buy.

Of course, if you're gonna sleep under all that gold you better have some nice threads to sleep between - like sheets made of Egyptian cotton touting a 1,000 thread count. My wife/seamstress informs me that's some kind of sheet. Oh, I almost forgot - the pillow cases. Price: $1,088 each.

Over there, they don't simply decorate a bedroom. They go out and buy one, like you and I would shop for an entire house.

Over here, the owner of Wow! Spaces, a Farmington Hills design firm specializing in the world of nothing but the best, told the Detroit Free Press: "For the very wealthy, indulging yourself and a child in the experience of luxury in a fantasy room is the thing to do." Okey dokey.

The story said the hip bedrooms in la-la land include leather floors, custom window treatments, silk wallpaper, eco-friendly themes, original works of art, stuff like that. Parents even take their kids literally all over the world looking for this stuff.

One set of parents commissioned a professional artist to paint an undersea mural featuring mermaids - for their toddler kid. I said toddler.

A three-dimensional bedroom can cost more than $50,000. Add to that tab 30-50 percent for décor and design fee, and you've got yourself some nice digs for the kid. If I had been so "lucky" as a kid, my three-dimensional dream would have been to design it like Michigan Stadium - The BIG HOUSE!

Suggestion: next time you're out shopping for a pillowcase (on sale, of course), you might want to step it up a notch and head over to Zimbabwe and pick up a hand-carved giraffe, like one caring couple.